'Key & Peele' to end its Comedy Central run after this season (exclusive)

The current season of "Key & Peele," the Comedy Central series that received multiple Emmy nominations earlier this month, will be the series' last, co-creator and star Keegan-Michael Key told TheWrap on Friday.

"This is our final season – and it's not because of Comedy Central, it's us," said Key. "It was just time for us to explore other things, together and apart. I compare it to Gene Wilder and Richard Pryor. We might make a movie and then do our own thing for three years and then come back and do another movie.

"I'm thinking we could do that every three years – take a year, go bang out a movie. That's the plan right now."

The fifth season of the sketch comedy series began on July 8 and will run into September. All of its episodes, Key said, have already been filmed.

Key and Jordan Peele first worked together during six seasons on "MadTV," with "Key & Peele" launching in January, 2012. The series spawned such viral hits as Luther, the "anger translator" for President Obama.

The show won a Peabody Award in 2013, with a citation that noted, "They tackle racially charged issues and ideas like no one else on television ... They break new ground even as they lay claim to all of comedy's traditions."

It received one Emmy nomination in 2013, three in 2014 and seven this year, including Outstanding Variety Sketch Series and Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series for Key.

Key said he and Peele have been keeping quiet about the their show ending its run, "but Jordan and I were talking yesterday, and we decided it's probably a good time to let people know."

They recently shot the comedy "Keanu," co-written by Peele and directed by frequent "Key & Peele" director Peter Atencio. In the coming months, said Key, he will act in a film in New York, while Peele will direct a horror film that he has written.

"There will be Key & Peele productions coming up," he said. "We're doing the reboot of 'Police Academy,' and there's a TV show in the works that me might do for Comedy Central. There's lots of stuff we have cooking up."